Day 25-27 - Renovation Rollercoaster

Tuesday

As you may have read in the previous post, we heard a drip coming from inside the powder room wall where we had installed the toilet directly above in the guest bathroom .  The plumber came out to take a look.  Remember the 4 layers of vinyl flooring we ripped out?  Well when you only replace it with one layer, the existing flange for the toilet is now too high.  Hence the wobbly toilet and bad seal.  So they put the toilet up on shims and we are going to seal the gap with caulking.  Problem solved!  Or so we thought.

That evening we went back to the house to take a look at the toilets and new vanities that went in upstairs.  Everything looked great until we saw this in the powder room...

That's a wet sub-floor.  So the leak wasn't just caused by the uneven toilet.  Another phone call to the plumber and he was back that evening.  My fears came true - they cut into my beautifully textured and freshly painted wall and ceiling.  But the good news?  I didn't cry about it.

The powder room and eat-in area of the kitchen both have a hole in the ceiling.  There's a one-inch slit in the large drain pipe that carries the water away from both of the upstairs bathroom.  Our plumber couldn't fix it, so he referred us to a certified plumber who would have the right tools (a torch, I believe) to fix such a large pipe.  The piece he needs should be in Friday to get the leaking section replaced.  We'll see how my wall/ceilings look after the patch!

On the bright side, the new vanities look lovely.  While a double vanity is awesome, neither of the bathrooms have a ton of space where the vanities go.  We probably could have squeezed in one with two sinks, but there would have been hardly any counter space.  Any gal getting ready in the morning will probably agree that counter space is a more precious commodity than another sink.  All three bathrooms have coordinating vanities in different sizes/configurations based on the space.  The guest bath is on the left with the master bath vanity shown on the right.  It's a little different but I liked having the different height pieces for the master.

Wednesday
The laminate installers arrived at 9 am to get started laying the Pergo flooring in the entryway, powder room, kitchen and dining room. This was one of those jobs that Daniel definitely could have done.  However, it's a big job!  And time = money.  Lowe's had a special to install the laminate at just 99 cents/sq foot.  At that price, it was worth it to save Daniel's limited time for other projects!

When they got there, they were concerned about the unevenness of the floor.  They spent most of the day patching the floor and leveling it so we would not have transitions between the entry/hall and rooms.  They will be returning to finish on Friday.  I will be so glad to not have anymore sub-floor showing in the house!  We've been walking on that dusty stuff for 4 weeks.  Watch for before and after pictures in the next post!

Thursday
Good fortune struck for the Goodwins! Our kitchen counters are currently situated to accommodate a slide-in range, where the controls are on the front and the counter goes behind the stove to overlap a bit in the back.  Typically, a slide-in costs at least double a traditional range so we planned on cutting the extra counter before we tiled to make room for a regular stove. 

On Wednesday, Daniel was browsing the Lowe's website and clicked on a stainless steel Samsung slide-in that you had to "add to your cart" to see the sale price.  Regular price was $1,800 (way too much to be spending on a stove).  In his cart, the price showed as $647 before tax.  That's a great price even for a regular range!  He quickly took a screen shot, then clicked to purchase it before they found what had to be an error in the price. 

Today he got an "Oops" email from Lowe's saying they had to cancel his order and would be sending him a "we're sorry" gift card.  Daniel called Customer Service to say he that he wanted the stove and didn't want the order to be cancelled.  The gal told him the range was in stock at our local Lowe's and could be picked up today.  Daniel rushed to Lowe's and picked up our new $1,800 stove, which was supposed to be on sale for $1,500, for less than $700 after tax.  Now that's a deal! 

Here's a partial look at the completed shower.  Grout should be done by this weekend.  It's been a busy week for us in other areas of our lives so we haven't been able to do as much as we would've liked to.  The real world carries on even while we hang in renovation limbo.  We are hoping to move in about two weeks.

Keep dreaming friends!